The 40th chief of the army general james mccarthonville. The secretary and chief and i will have a chat about the defense strategy, the armys modernization priorities, the president s budget request that just came out, as well as the emerging joint war fighting concept and well save about 15 minutes at the end to take questions from the audience here. First i want to throw it over to the secretary and the chief to give a couple opening remarks. Thank you, susan. Its the closest i will get to davos, switzerland. Great opportunity to be here. Thank you. As we discussed in the green room, these are wonderful opportunities for us to try to talk about how were trying to transform the army. Were in year three of a very aggressive effort of transforming the army in not only how we train the force, how we modernize and ultimately help our people reach their maximum potential. As i emphasized the third year of a massive restructuring like weve not seen in over 40 years in the army with creating an organization specifically to modernize the force, but staying against the fundamentals, readiness, modernization and we use reform as a tool to finance our ambition and help us evolve. On the readiness standpoint, when you look back over three years ago, two brigades at the highest levels of readiness, were north of 25 today. One of the things we recognize with all the changes and challenges we face in the world, the force projection is something youre going to see interest in focus with the leadership. General milley and general mcconville and abrams did a remarkable job getting us back to focus getting tactical readiness in a great place, but now its how do you take these units and project them very quickly worldwide. We did that on new years eve. Remarkably well. Maybe Second Airborne Division on a cold start moved a Brigade Combat Team and within hours had the First Battalion on the ground. Literally took people out of new years eve parties. Cold start. But at scale, moving heavy formations within days to get them on the ground with partners in europe and east asia is something were really focused on. Made some investments in the 21 budget and we will do that as we continue to march across so we can improve that span time of getting boots on the ground quickly. The modernization effort, massive restructuring over two years ago to bring all those stakeholders together under one roof, reducing the span time and Decision Making but also bringing clarity in decisions. Forging better relationships between the requirements, community, acquisition, tasks, sustainment. Very proud of that. Very excited. A lot of prototypes because weve moved 80 of the funding against those six modernization priorities. That was about a little over two years ago. Between our night Court Efforts which were basically zerobased budgeting reviews weve gone through our second evolution. Weve got north of 45 billion across that we moved against these priorities. Lot of energy. Youll see about half of the procurement dollars against new capabilities by the middle of this. A huge change within our enterprise. That brings nothing but tough choices in 22 and 23. If these prototypes are successful, thats where the choices will be made bringing in, into the formation, to start to scale. Big challenges in front of us. We emphasize the word reform repeatedly. That helps us evolve as an institution. It helps us do a better job at managing every dollar we have and the chief says this all the time, dollars are like bullets. He pounds the commanders. You know, about three or four years ago, we would have obligations upwards of 4 billion that would just go back to the treasury. Were less than a billion today. Continue to get better there, but thats just been leadership. Him sitting in a Conference Room pound people on the screen and its amazing how it works, right. Weve improved dramatically from that standpoint. Changing the operating model and doing a lot of things differently, and that means we have to get out more and communicate and emphasize the things were trying to do. I think the chief would be great to talk more of the spixz with each of those initiatives. I agree with the secretary. We have to be ready now. We saw that on new years eve and we are. We also have to invest in the future. And when i look at, you know,s the army over the last hundred years or so, weve had major transformations about every 40 years. 1940, going to world war ii we transformed the army. In 1980, when a lot of us came into the army we had a major transformation on how we did business and now we find ourselves in 2020 and we have to transform the army. Thats what were going to do. Were moving from an Industrial Age into the information age. We have to do things differently. We talk about transformational change. Were not looking for incremental improvements. Were looking for transformational changes. If you take a look at what were doing when it comes to modernization, thats exactly what were getting after. Just one aside or one kind of of were just not talking about new equipment. Were talking about a new way were going to fight, were talking about new organizations, were talking about modernization priorities and also talking about how we manage people in the 21st century. Were excited whats going on in the army and look forward to your questions. All right. So im going to start this conversation where i always start these conversations with a strategy, defense strategy. Secretary esper had what i will call a Birthday Party for the nds a couple weeks ago, just turned 2 and in a way, it certainly feels like the strategy is in the terrible 2s. Three dynamic moments. A lot of change happening, which is always hard. Hopefully in the end rewarding. So i want to start off by asking, you know, both of you, how is the army doing when it comes to being measured directly against nds implementation and general mcconville, also in your joint chiefs hat, how is the joint force as a whole doing in achieving the goals that were the priorities that were laid out in the nds . So ill try not to grade us too liberally, but really, the proof is in the pudding. Weve moved billions of dollars to develop new Weapons Systems. I think the first we put our money where our mouth is. The second standpoint, granted those Weapon Systems have to get through that modernization knot hole and be successful. If you look we put an Aggressive Program in place, emergency deployment Readiness Exercise where we can do these in europe and east asia. The defender series exercise between doing one thats starting right now in europe, put a division size element on the continent the following year well do one in east asia. We put a lot of funding and troops towards these exercises to help strengthen partnerships and increase presence worldwide. To the chiefs points earlier were looking at our disposition for expeditionary capable bases in southeast asia. We have we Just Announced a core headquarters that were going to have that will be the Service Retained but the flag will be planted in the states but specifically designated to operate in europe and looking with partner nations for where we would house that. I think were probably a solid b at this point. A lot more work to do. When you talk about the joint force, were going to fight as a joint force. Its very important that we shares the same vision how were going to fight in the future. Right now at joint level, developing in the joint alldomain operations concept. Jdao as they call it. So normally we had air, land, battle that recognized two domains. Now we believe we will be tested in all domains, in cyber, space and we recognize that. We also recognize that there will be a lot of crossdomain contributions to the joint force and probably one of the best examples of this is longrange precision fire where we can envision us providing longrange precision fires that penetrate potential antiaccess air denial capabilities that will enable either maritime or air forces maneuver in the joint fight. So i definitely want to come back to that concept, the joint all domain war fighting concept. First i want to dig deeper on the two principle priorities the National Defense strategy, strategic competition with china and russia and start by asking, how has the armys view of its role in asia changed or evolved as a result of the nds . How are you thinking about, you know, what the armys role in that conflict or potential conflict would look like . We both ought to talk about this. I think three ground wars in the last century in asia, weve always been in asia. We have how many people we have assigned to the endo paycom . 91,000. Just assigned to that combat and command. We have been instrumental in deterrence for a long time there. You see much more emphasis over the last several years for the pacific pathways exercise. When he and i were the under vice team we went out and spent about three days with admiral Phil Davidson in endo paycom in hawaii going through the plans, what do you need. We made the adjustments and to investigate against the capabilities that he needs to win. The program highlighted, the defender exercise that were going to put in place, so we have always been and we have doubled down on that Going Forward and theres going to be no greater deterrence than boots on the Ground Training side by side with allies. Were looking very hard at our disposition and the duration of forces west of International Dateline and youre going to see a lot of moves associated with that over the next 18 months. The National Defense strategy talks about Great Power Competition, but Great Power Competition does not necessarily mean great power conflict. The way you avoid conflict is through strength, the way you avoid is strong relationships with partners and allies in the region and working together and thats really the strategy that were pursuing. On the capability side specifically, you know, maybe we talk a little bit about where longrange precision fire is headed and postinf, what does that mean in asia in both deterrent and warfighting cape snblts. When you look at longrange precision fires, some have set up systems for which we use the term antiaccess air denial that may keep us make it more difficult if we ever got into a conflict with the ability to penetrate and we want to have the ability to penetrate with naval or air forces and what that allows us to do is to divide that capability. I wonder if we can turn to russia and talk about kind of how the army is thinking about that particular competition and also ask if we could dive a little deeper on the defender exercise. I think thats an exciting development, actually. As far as, you know,s the same thing in europe, we have a lot of partners and allies and nato is a very strong relationship and again, Great Power Competition does not necessarily mean great power conflict. Standing together with our allies and partners, showing strength and an exercise that allows us to practice, rehearse our ability to bring forces into europe and work closely with our partners and thats whats going to happen over the next couple months. Im really excited about it. The chief is going to watch an airborne drop, going to georgia, and im going to im going to go watch him unload Armored Vehicles out of a shipyard. So youre going to be able to see us driving through cities and were going to be alongside them and going out and do live hp fi fire exercises. Its an exciting spring and you will have tens of thousands of americans all over deployed in Different Countries and conducting various exercises. One of the key tenants of the National Defense strategy we call Dynamic Force employment and the secretary said we saw that in iraq with the 82nd airborne division, but its also the ability to maneuver or move multiple forces by multiple means, whether its by planes, automobiles, trains, and ships. Thats what we intend to do. Yeah. So clearly a lot of progress there visavis the nds. I wonder if you could give me a few comments on, you know, where does the work remain to be done, whats still on your to do list when it comes to nds implementation . Modernization is the just what i, you know, what keeps you up at night. The time. We have were blessed with budget increases right now and just nailing these investments, so the chief and i have maintained a role even in our new jobs of staying on top of this pretty regularly, more so than maybe historically, but we have such a massive investment and if we can get these prototypes to be successful it will make these decisions in 22 and 23 that much easier and you can reduce your risk. From that standpoint its really large. The readiness piece, its something were remarkably proud of and do very well and something we can turn very quickly. You have the most hardened and seasoned combat leaders in the republic. If theres a place i dont worry as much because i know we have them. Modernization is going to be tough. We dont deter conflict with powerpoint slides. Were very proud of our modernization priorities and theyre moving along and were getting close to prototypes and theyre in the hands of soldiers. To me success is when theyre in the hands of a soldier in an operations unit. Its nice we have all these great programs going and we have wonderful briefings and we are in the process of getting close to prototype. To me, success is when all these modernization priorities we have are in the hands of soldiers and theyre getting a chance to exercise. Yeah. Thats an excellent segue, almost like we planned it, into stock taking on the big fix modernization priorities. Before we get into the specific programs, i want to ask a little bit more broadly, you know, what does modernization means to the army, aside from the the equipment . Obviously the new kit is a huge part of it, but whats the other piece . You should take that. Ill take that. You know, we thought our way through this. Again, i talked about some of the older folks in the room remember the 1980s and in the 1980s we came out with a battle, a new way we were going to fight. New units, some of you remember desert one where we developed our special operations units, the 160th came out of there, and our combat Training Centers the way we were going to fight came out in the 1980s, the big five, and went to the allvolunteer force. It was a lot more than just the big five that modernized the army. Move forward to 2020 whats new, it starts with multidomain operations. Moving from air, land, battle to multidomain operations. Were starting to stand up new units, Multi Domain Task forces, Security Assistance forces brigades and five of those in the active and one in the regular army. Were taking a hard look at Information Warfare what that looks like so we can compete below the level of armed conflict. Where we had what we called dirt combat Training Centers now were going to train in virtual reality, train in cyber ranges so, you know, we can do those Information Operation things that we need to do. We talked about the big six, but the other thing were spending a lot of time is on talent management. We recognize that were in a war for talent and, you know, we had in a lot of ways Industrial Aged Personnel Management systems and we want to keep the best and brightest in the United States army we have to compete for their talents and putting systems in place to do that. Most young people today do not want to be interchangeable parts in Industrial Aged system. They want to be recognized for their talents and thats what were doing. Okay. Well, i think from there lets step through the big modernization priorities and talk about each of them. Longrange precision fires we talked about already, but i want to dive a little bit deeper into, you know, how has your thinking about the development of the capability changed postinf, and how does it contribute to kind of the joint fires problem specifically in the asia pacific . What does it look like in motion . I can talk about the program. The chief is probably better suited to talk about the dynamics in the South China Sea and others. We moved ahead for the full production for the program, extended range cannon artillery, were excited about this. We fired a wraparound twice the distance of the from 39 north to 70 kilometers, hit with precision. Were excited about this. To be able to double tactical artillery that quickly, we know theres a lot of margin for growth there so were very excited about that program. Precision Strike Missile had a successful test in november. This is the replacement. Youll have twice the volume and now were in a postinf kind of world you will be able to go upwards of 600 kilometers. Were extending the range of these longrange precision fire Weapons Systems at every echelon which will give us greater ability to maneuver against potential adversaries in the future. The hypersonics efforts, Lieutenant General feelgood, the chief handpicked for that job has been outstanding and literally corralled the entire department against the effort. Were finding economies of scale with the buys. Theyre sharing the information. Were doing this jointly within the test regime. He has collapsed the span time and the army will be the first to field this capability. Whats that early 23, fiscal 23, and so longrange precision fire program is number one. Its north of 10 billion across. We put a lot of funding against that. But a lot of talent. To the chiefs point before, some tale